The Region - News from April 15, 1986

Results of an autopsy on a woman whose body was found in an abandoned apartment house were not definitive enough to determine whether the slaying was related to the 16 victims of the so-called Southside prostitute killer, police said. Meanwhile, Sam Marsha, 35, of Los Angeles, detained by an unidentified citizen and turned over to police just outside the apartment house at Central Avenue and 80th Street, has been booked on suspicion of murder. The victim, Sharon Annette Rauls, 26, had no record of any prostitution arrest, police said. Most of the serial killer’s victims were known prostitutes. An autopsy showed only that she had died of asphyxia due to obstruction or closure of the windpipe. Lt. John Zorn of the Southside Serial Killer Task Force said that, while the latest killing did not exactly match the others, there is not yet enough evidence to entirely rule out a possible link.